It seems a shame to have to revisit this subject. Although, the two - guns and religion - are old bedfellows.
From the the time of the first gun, invented in the 1400's, through the Colt handgun patent in the 1800's, to the invention of the machine gun and founding of the NRA in the early 1900's, these symbols of power have been making the act of hurting someone less and less personal.
I mention this aspect because the lack of relationship to the act of killing or maiming another is directly related to our hands not touching the victim/recipient of the wounding. To kill another by hand is a much deeper level of contact, and requires a much more personal experience of the other person. In fact, it requires a point of relating - or relationship.
This is where the spirit begins to enter the field of vision. We are inundated from childhood to not hurt others, to do "unto" others as we want done to us, and to not kill, steal or cheat. These are messages of morality, and most often, of religions espousing conduct edicts.
Guns take away the personal relationship we have to one another to do no harm.
Whether we are at a carnival playing a shooting ducks game to win a prize, or watching video games requiring the click of a mouse to explode someone on the screen, the distance between our involvement and our empathy is miles wide. We just sit and blow people away without a thought of what that thought represents.
The Oak Park shooting near Milwaukee occurred yesterday. A Sikh community is devastated as the gunman(men) walked into their temple and started indiscriminately firing a semi-automatic pistol. He killed six people and then he was shot and killed by the police.
I've stayed in Oak Park. There is much diversity, and many cultures converge there, although it is predominantly an Anglo-American suburb.
Shall we once again review the reasons why automatic weapons should be banned from public consumption? I think not. It's a divisive subject and my views are obvious. However, I did find this information/comment from someone who wrote on the NY Times webpage in response to an article about the incident. It does seem very telling:
"The issue of "home defense" or protection against intruders or assailants may well be misrepresented.
• A study of 626 shootings in or around a residence in three U.S. cities revealed that, for every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides (Kellermann et al, 1998).
• Over 50% of all households in the U.S. admit to having firearms (Nelson et al, 1987).
• In another study, regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and suicide in the home (Dahlberg, Ikeda and Kresnow, 2004).
• Persons who own a gun and who engage in abuse of intimate partners such as a spouse are more likely to use a gun to threaten their intimate partner. (Rothman et al, 2005).
• Individuals in possession of a gun at the time of an assault are 4.46 times more likely to be shot in the assault than persons not in possession (Branas et al, 2009).
It would appear that, rather than being used for defense, most of these weapons inflict injuries on the owners and their families."
http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNSTAT.html
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